Pearson: I think you have a tendency to overlook our lack of knowledge of how the brain works. You talk of constant brain circuitry, when people add new hippocampal cells through their life. We also expand the brain areas devoted to fingers if we are born blind and use braille.

Pearson, "constant brains" means "brains with constant adaptation-algorithms, such as an adaptation-algorithm for rewiring via reinforcement" not "brains with constant synaptic networks". I think a bit of interpretive charity would have been in order here.

We don't know how deep the rabbit hole of adaptation goes. Are there constant adaptation-algortihms? Constant adaptation algorithms are not a prerequisite for an optimization process, evolution being the cannonical example. It gets by with a very changeable adaptation-algorithm embodied in the varieties of genetic transfer, reproduction rates etc. We have barely scratched the surface of adaption systems, assuming a constant adaptation-algorithm for intelligence is premature, as far as I am concerned.